Little Ice Age

wolfhnd

As many of you are aware western Europe experienced what has become know as the Little Ice Age during the years 1550 to 1750. The social disruption cause by this climate change is hard to underestimate and we are being told that Global Warming will have a similar devastating effect on the societies of the world in the next few years.

If you will take a look at this website http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm you may note that we are at the bottom of a cool period from a geological perspective . My question is how could warming be bad if the current conditions represent abnormally low temperatures? It is not just that we are at the bottom of the curve it appears life has always been more abundant during the warm periods. If you need the paleontological background for this observation I will post it.

I'm not looking for a list of all the predicted horrors that we have come to associate with Global Warming. This a simple question about how the planets life thrived during periods of much higher temperature if warm is so bad.

riv_

Wolfnd...
Thankyou! I've often wondered the same thing myself.
15 years ago it was a generally accepted fact that we are coming out of an ice age. Now, we're in a panic about global warming... and, furthermore, we've caused it? Something doesn't add up.
And the media has picked up on one side of a scientific debate and run with it, so we've all accepted man made "global warming" as fact.
I think that it is much more likely that it is part of a natural cycle.
That siad, there's no telling how it will impact our species. Just because it's natural on a global level, doesn't mean it will be beneficial for good ol' homo sapiens!

horseatingweeds

It’s like this fellows. Global warming causes the “ice age”. Not that I put a huge bit of faith in the theory, but as the globe warms the poles melt. As the poles melt the amount of water between the continents change and currents slow or change. The ocean current being much of the reason for temperature regulation. Once this happens a new ice age ensues. As the theory goes.

The currents, the magical currents. I’m glad I’m not a scientist. But wait, goes a degree in “science” make you a scientist?

bewald

While warmer temperatures do cause many signs of life to flourish, the current "set up" of the world would be devastated with a change-- those animals adapted to cold temperatures would either die or migrate searching for a cool enough place to live. As well, some animals/plants/species in warmer climates would not be able to survive the increase in temperature as they are already in high temperatures.

The polar ice caps also are a major concern because as the temperature becomes warmer, even slightly, more ice melts (which is slowly happening now) the warmer it becomes, the more ice melts. The increase of water decreases the amount of land that is inhabitable, slowly eating away at the continents.